Posts tagged Pennsylvania
UPS Avoids Teamsters Strike at Largest Air Hub as Union Further Slams Buyouts
August 14, 2025 // The Teamsters alleged that the package delivery company had ignored or delayed answering complaints that they were regularly diverting airport distribution services to workers paid a lower rate. UPS agreed to a new settlement that solved a jurisdictional dispute between two Teamsters local branches at the maintenance center. In Chicago, the union secured a first contract for its administrative and specialist workers at Teamsters Local 705, with the new deal earning the employees the top wage rate for their respective job duties.
THE BLUE DIVIDE
August 13, 2025 // The documents are an incomplete and opaque window into the finances for the Survivors’ Fund and Lodge 5, which are both 501(c) nonprofits. Another FOP nonprofit, the Home Association, operates the 7C Lounge, an expansive bar decorated in gleaming dark wood in the union’s 50,000-square-foot headquarters. A comprehensive financial picture of the nonprofits would be possible only by examining all credit card statements, receipts, and records. Those records are not publicly available, and even union members say FOP leaders have only allowed them to view a limited selection of documents.
We finally know who paid for Josh Shapiro’s inauguration celebrations (kinda)
August 12, 2025 // A fundraising pitch prepared by Shapiro’s inauguration committee and reviewed by Spotlight PA promised high-dollar contributors face time with the governor. “VIP tickets to the Inaugural Celebration include access to the VIP lounge through the evening,” fine print on the document states. “A clutch with Governor-Elect Shapiro and Lt. Governor-Elect [Austin] Davis will be held in the VIP lounge at the start of the event.” Unlike some states, cities, and the federal government, Pennsylvania does not require top elected officials to disclose who contributes to celebrations held to mark their entrance into office. Shapiro has declined to do so voluntarily.
‘Remarkable and unprecedented’: Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh thanks NYT tech workers for ‘substantial’ donation
August 11, 2025 // At the 2025 NewsGuild Sector Conference at the Wyndham Grand in Downtown, Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh President Zack Tanner awarded the New York Times Tech Guild with a plaque for its $114,000 donation in December to workers striking against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The donation was the remainder of what the Times tech workers raised for their own strike in November and came at a time when the Pittsburgh strikers were in need of financial support for their strike, which was then and remains the longest ongoing work stoppage in the country. “Once they won their strike and took care of their own members, they had a very substantial amount of money left, about $114,000,” Tanner said. “Those Times Tech Guild workers voted together to forward that to our Pittsburgh strike fund, and I’m not exaggerating when I say we would not be standing here on strike if it wasn’t for that donation.”
Portable Benefits Are (Finally) Having a Moment
July 31, 2025 // I’ve been fortunate to contribute to this conversation from the beginning — by publishing research and policy guides that examine outdated assumptions about work and benefits. I’ve shared these findings with Sen. Cassidy’s and Rep. Kiley’s team, as well as with every congressional or state lawmaker who showed interest — and have testified more than a dozen times before Congress and in state legislative hearings.
Unveiling Financial Transparency Failures in Labor Organizations
July 24, 2025 // In 2024 alone, the DOL recorded 177 union enforcement actions involving fraud, embezzlement, wire fraud, and falsified records. These are only the crimes that rise to the level of federal prosecution. Far more ethical violations, financial misuses, and questionable behaviors fall below the radar leaving union members in the dark and are quietly buried through internal repayments, hush resignations, or legal threats — all without any formal DOL investigation or public accountability. Despite 16 years as a union official, I did not become aware of the existence of LM-2 financial disclosure filings until our local filed a lawsuit against our state affiliate. Imagine that: even as a union president and past treasurer, I was unaware that both our state and national unions were required to submit LM-2 forms to the Department of Labor. If someone like me — deeply engaged in union governance — was kept in the dark, how can we expect average members to know their rights, much less exercise them?
Postdoctoral scholars and research assistants at Penn vote to unionize
July 24, 2025 // Research Associates and Postdocs United at Penn would join the United Auto Workers labor union, which represents over 120,000 academic workers across the country, including 4,000 graduate workers at Penn who voted to unionize last year. Will Drayer, a postdoctoral researcher in materials science and engineering at Penn and a forefront member of the campaign to unionize, said the next steps include democratically electing a bargaining committee and surveying members to establish clear priorities before entering contract negotiations with the university.
Unions rally in Pittsburgh against Trump’s cuts to worker protections and research funding
July 23, 2025 // The event was a stop on the AFL-CIO’s “It’s Better in a Union: Fighting for Freedom, Fairness & Security” bus tour. Labor leaders including AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, USW International President David McCall and Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council President Darrin Kelly took the mic to address the impacts of the administration’s cuts to university research funding, Medicaid and the firing of workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, both in Pittsburgh and across the country. After the speeches, volunteers handed out a sheet of paper with a phone number to reach the House of Representative and a QR code with a prewritten email in support of a discharge petition to force a vote in that chamber on the Protect America’s Workforce Act, a bill that aims to reverse Trump’s executive order that eliminated collective bargaining rights for federal workers.
Opinion: Democrats Attack Gig-Worker Benefits
July 23, 2025 // In a committee hearing on the bill last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders sidestepped the issue of worker benefits to address his party’s real concern—giving unions more power over individual workers. “These bills are about giving corporations the freedom to deny workers the right to form a union,” he said. Independent contractors can’t unionize under the National Labor Relations Act, so unions and the Democrats they support want to outlaw contract work, or at least deprive it of benefits that could attract workers. Democrats on the committee were united in opposition. This political opposition has deterred several gig companies from offering benefits. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has pledged more than $650 million a year to fund health insurance and paid time off if lawmakers would withdraw the threat of reclassifying the company’s drivers.
Former Union Official in $15K Embezzlement Case Seeks Probation Citing Alcoholism, Redemption
July 17, 2025 // According to federal prosecutors, Wolf exploited his post as financial secretary for United Steel Workers Local 623 in Freedom, Beaver County from 2013 until he was ousted in a 2021 election. A subsequent audit uncovered a pattern of misappropriation: checks written to himself, ATM withdrawals from union accounts, and personal charges—including alcohol and meals—on the union’s debit card.